Bee Craft Timely Reminder - 15th April 2020

Wax moth - this has to be the topic today. My colleague in Lincolnshire has managed to inspect her colonies, despite it still being fairly cold, only to find wax moth is present in the form of the trails (detailed below) and "big fat maggots when the frame was walloped"! The blame has been laid at the use of open mesh floors. Do you have an opinion on this?

Experience here in the South West is different. It has been really hot - not just warm - but we haven’t found any wax moth in our colonies. In nine years we have never found any in our occupied polyhives whether or not we have left the varroa trays in place.

We have, however, found evidence in the extracted comb that has been stored over winter. In this the trails containing the eggs - which look like a roll of dense cobweb across the comb with black ‘dots’ - were visible on one frame in one box. But as a result we are keeping a close eye on the others which remain in storage.

So, if you plan to use extracted comb in your colonies, doublecheck them first to make sure they don’t contain any wax moth trails. You may remember from a reminder in the autumn, we always separate our boxes containing extracted comb with sheets of newspaper to restrict any possible spread.